ALBANY – After years of robust gains, the state’s pension fund took a dive the past fiscal year, losing nearly $15 billion of its value, Comptroller Carl McCall announced yesterday.

Last year, the fund was valued at an all-time high of $127 billion. But as Wall Street struggled, the fund dropped to $112.4 billion – down 8.7 percent – between April 2000 and March 31 this year, said McCall, the pension system’s sole administrator.

The drop, the first in nearly two decades, could hurt McCall, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for governor next year.

“For years, a combination of strong returns and a strong strategy helped save the state and local governments billions of dollars,” McCall said.

“In the last year, though, the world has changed.”

Between last April and this March, the Nasdaq fell 58.5 percent and the S&P Index fell 21.8 percent.

McCall aides say they are not worried about the pension fund’s drop. They noted that it is still up 11.1 percent over the past five years.

And they say New York’s fund has actually fared better in the recent economic slowdown than other states, including California, which saw its pension fund lose 10.6 percent of its value between April 2000 and March 2001.

McCall spokesman Jeffrey Gordon said that, as of yesterday, the fund was worth about $112 billion, roughly the same as when the current fiscal year began on April 1.